Visions of Aestia

Hmm I’ve been getting lazy - mostly because of how popular this blog has started to get, but John assures me I should continue posting! :BLUSH:

Anyway. Cecily is walking EVERYwhere, faster and faster. She even carries around rather heavy/bulky items like her plastic chair her nanny gave her for her birthday. Its all I can do to keep her out of trouble out in public, I’m actually considering using that toddler harness I bought ages ago! There’s a reason that most kids don’t start walking till a bit later - 1 year olds have no business being so fast!
To top that stress, she’s become an actual toddler. That is to say, besides the walking we have full on tantrums and, what is it they call it here, wobblies? The tantrums are kinda cute, since its just her throwing herself forward over her front legs and ‘crying’. Its easy enough to ignore (though I have to hide the giggle), which is what was suggested to me - it seems to work, no audience makes it boring for her! The wobblies are a bit more annoying… she actually screams, very high pitched, with this look of utter anger and shock that something isn’t going her way. I just ignore it too, but my poor ears are paying for it!
And now poor John… the kid has decided 5 am is a good time to wake, and because of my meds sedating me he’s the one that has to get up with her. Wonder how that will go? We were so used to her going down by 8pm and up, at the earliest, by 7:30am. Ah the good ‘ole days. In contrast though, I’m getting longer naps from her during the day Can’t say that bothers me much, but thats being a little selfish.

Stats for little from 1 year plunket visit: 80.5cm 11kg, “advanced in language (has a 30+ word vocab) and gross and delicate motor skills such as walking/balance (catches herself very well before falling, and can carry items while walking quickly) and hand use (can hold a pen with her fingers, not whole hand, while scribbling)”
So basically, she’s above the 95 percentile on the plunket graph for height, just below it for weight (therefor proportionate), and any suggested reading material for age groups has to be given 4-8 months in advance. Not bad for a (almost) 13 month old! Its so fun to read child development books because she’s always doing things months, sometimes 6 months like stacking 8 blocks, in advance.

Okay enough show off I better change said genius, I can smell her across the room. I wonder if potty training will be sooner too!

Wow, one day she refuses to even stand, the next she’s toddling everywhere! She cant make it across the room without tipping over but she’s getting there She even showed off by walking all around when I took her to the after hours clinic after a rather nasty hit to the head resulting in a nasty looking dent (that was monday with the hit, visit yesterday - today she’s fine).

Silly man, didn’t even post about this!

Today is Cecily Rose’s FIRST BIRTHDAY! yay! I can’t believe how fast it went. We had a big party yesterday with all of our ‘adopted’ family - I never knew how many good friends we had until they were all together in the same room. It got quite crowded!

Happy birthday to my girl, I’m so proud of how much she’s grown!

Cecily toddled not only by herself, but stopped mid toddle (usually only walks to us then falls into our arms), turned around, and started up again. Boy this is going quick now!!!

Cecily really IS picking up words left and right. Her language is just exploding. She says ‘walk, walk, walk’ when she wants to - you guessed it - walk, and picked up the word “block” and applies it correctly with just one time of naming it. It was a shock when I sat down with her on the floor and she handed me one of her new blocks and told me block.

She shares amazingly well too, especially for a little girl that doesn’t see other kids very often anymore, let alone kids her own age. She gives us stuff often and rarely actually expects it back, though we do give it back when she indicates the desire. She hands things to us constantly, especially stuffed toys, which she makes clear by hugging herself that she wants us to hug the toy. Thank goodness, too, she tends to hand us little bits we’ve missed on the floor, except when its (dried!) cheese.

Well its toddler time! She’s been standing up from sitting without any help, then toddling (now I see why its called that!) to either daddy or me. 3 steps nearly every time if we’re careful and back up far enough!

She also has started to truly adore the swimming pool. We took her on weds, and even though she could only crawl she kept trying to go head first into the deeper end. She didn’t even go into hysterics when she went under each time! Her favorite part was trying to walk using a little floater pad, which she did quite well. We also met a 2.5 year old girl who was SUCH a sweetheart. Kept coming to Cecily to give her hugs and help her walk, and Cecily was very affectionate in return. Obviously we have a very social girl on our hands - should have been obvious; until she hit her shy stage she used to let absolutely anyone hold her, and now she gives hugs and kisses to Mommy, Daddy, and now Nanny Betty.

Continuing on Johns last post, she can now point (with little more than “show us your…”) to her hair, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, and teeth. From what I’ve read thats pretty impressive for a not-quite-12 month old. She’s also repeating just about everything you say (gotta be careful!) by just repeating it once or twice. We gave her a shoe box to play with today; it only took one prompt for her to say box, and she can now point to it without hesitation when asked where it is.

On top of those good things though, she’s beginning to get incredibly whingy. I’m not entirely sure if its our fault (spoiling too much?) or if its just an early start to terrible twos. Even now she’s crying like its the end of the world because she was told no. We’re firm and consistant, so I don’t think its lack of dicipline on our part… but man its annoying.

Today was Cecily’s first Christmas. She really, really enjoyed herself opening her presents. She started going “ooooh” every time she opened a new present, and was very excited over most of them.

All after noon she’s been playing with her new toys and just having a ball. I was really happy just to see her enjoy herself so much.

She also got to have some fruit cake and learned to say “uh-oh” when she knocked down a block tower. Her maternal grandparents got to see her open the presents on Webcam and were very pleased to see her having fun.

It’s hard to believe thar it’s been less than a year since she was born. Her personality is forming up very nicely. A little stubborn, but warm and loving. She loves books, laughs all the time, is bright as a button, and just seems to enjoy life. Her favorite food to date is cheese and she prefers plain water to juice. She’s going through the terrible twos a year early but speaks wonderfully. Her vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds and the new toys and books will grow it even more.

I suspect we got very lucky. She’s a low-maintenance child and if we don’t make any major mistakes in the next couple of years she will be a complete angel when she gets older. I think fatherhood suits me - because I’ve rarely been happier than I have been this year.

My darling husband insists Cecily stood from sitting without any support today. I missed it, and I find it surprising that she’d do that before she’s willing to walk (we know she can since she has, she just is reluctant to do more!)

Also, cute as can be, I picked Cec up to view a friend while I was showing off my new webcam, and she got a huge smile and waved immediately at the screen, without any prompting. She’s not seen webcam working for, oh, at least 8 months so she couldnt remember it. What a clever girl!

How sad is this. Cecily didn’t wake until 10 this morning, and now is down for the past 2 hours… and I’m BORED. Have I fallen so far behind on my own life that I have nothing to do when she’s asleep?

The other downer to this, every time she sleeps this much, it means she’s getting sick… and it usually coincides with a new tooth. I hope we don’t have another weekend of high fevers and worry!

I decided to be lazy and let Cec feed herself some veggies while I played out a level of metal blob solid. What a good girl she is, she’s STILL sitting next to me in her highchair slowly and carefully picking up one piece after another and eating it. Its incredible the amount of patience she has for a nearly 11 month old

And on top of that, since she’s the perfect height for me to lean over face to face with her right now, I leaned over and opened my mouth for a bite teasingly… she actually fed me a piece! LOL Poor thing though, she was obviously shocked to realize I wasn’t giving it back!! Its not too surprising she hasn’t tried to give me another!

This morning Cecily added the word “button” to her vocabulary. I mentioned this to Ama, who asked her to say it for her.

Cecily pointed to one on my shirt and said “button” clear as a bell. Ama’s jaw dropped - wasn’t expecting that, clearly. The expression on her face was priceless.

In addition to today’s unaided steps, Cecily walked twice while holding my hand. When she was trying to get into the icebox, I took her hand and, surprisingly, led her over to her toybox. She quite happily walked all the way over.

Then we had to do it all over again so Mommy could capture it on camera.

Cecily had a DVD in her hand
… anyway she couldnt grab on to anything to stand, so she just STOOD !! all by herself! and it was a beautiful fluid motion too, no clumsy staggering. I dont even think she realised what she’d done!

Just as I was leaving to catch the bus, I pulled the stroller from out of Cecily’s grip - it was folded and she almost pulled it over top of her - and even with it out of her hand she stood there, alone, in the middle of the hall, and just grinned at me and clapped. Not even a wobble! And while waiting for a taxi home I walked her around with my hands in hers, and she let go of all but my thumb and kept on walking. YAY!!…. uhh… yikes? Time to buy a leash! :O

Always put your dice away after a game if you have little children.

If you don’t, you’ll have to miss a day of work because the little one has been taken down to ER.

Cecily stood for several minutes at a time today. I was busy preparing her dinner and she was standing next to her little scooter beeping the horn. She was clearly balancing herself - as opposed to leaning on the scooter - but it didn;t really register.

That is, until she clapped. She has an endearing habit of applauding when she does something she is proud of or is especially excited. The fact that she did so without a second thought and without any special effort to keep her balance drove home just how close she is to actually walking on her own.

Any day now…

So about mid-day today, out pops … you got it, one of daddy’s D8’s. The whole D&D group is horrible about dropping dice on the floor and I’m constantly telling them to pick it up right away so its not forgotten, but I guess I missed one. Not even a complaint, surprisingly enough, when she passed it, but then again Cecily rarely complains. I have no idea how long that dice stayed in her throat before she finally choked, but we’re really lucky the paramedics didn’t have to fish it out when they got here (given that she managed to swallow it soon after she turned blue!) or she would have one heck of a sore throat today.

tired of retyping this, so here’s a cut from the mums group I manage:

I’m still a wreck, and we’ve been home from ER for just over an hour. Cecily choked (as in not breathing at all and turned purple) this morning, and an ambulance and several hours at the ER (and several xrays) later we’re home. I’m still near crying, that had to have been the worst, scariest experience of my life.
A friend was over for coffee and I sat on the floor to start feeding cecily her morning yogurt, first bite and she started coughing and gasping… I immediately did the infant choking maneovour but it was no good… she could cry between gasps but thats it and it was obvious she was straining to breathe. I knew something was wrong - she’s choked before but never like this - and told my friend to call 111. Friend then ran out to direct the ambulance since our house is hard to find, and thats when Cecily stopped breathing all together and turned purple… I managed to stick my finger in her mouth and dig out some cellutape but she didn’t stop choking. It felt like forever but it must have only been 30 seconds. I ran outside to save time and she started gasping/choking and stopped going funny colors just as the ambulance pulled up, then started breathing right again.
In the end we went to ER anyway, even though she finally started breathing normally and was happy as the paramedics were examining her….. Hubby is home now and we went through what happened, and we now figure she must have had paper or something stuck there under the tape (the xray shows something odd in her tummy but nothing dangerous) and had just enough airway to breathe, but when i went to feed her it clogged up completely. Near the end she must have swallowed it just after I got the tape out and freed up her airways. Time will tell what the culprit was I suppose!

Anyway sorry if that was a bit messed up, not sure if I got it out in the right order…. but I had to share it, otherwise I’ll spend the rest of the evening crying and shaking!

So today Ama calls me from the ER - never a good thing. Apparently Cecily nearly choked to death on an unknown substance - she actually stopped breathing for about 30 seconds.

Luckily she’s fine, and none the worse for wear. An x-ray didn’t turn anything obvious up, but we suspect it was paper.

Well we went to Lollipops today, a local kids play place. Its really meant for walking-age kids, but our mums group was holding their last meeting for the holidays there. Cecily absolutely adored it, especially the bouncing castle , and a little ‘under 4’s’ peepy-hole gym. The gym went over really well though, she could actually climb it herself and was quite happy to have mum hold her hands while she slid down the ‘big’ slide… about head height for me. It looks like something we should buy for our backyard! Maybe a birthday present. Over all it was great fun, and I invited some ladies over to our place once a week so I don’t go stir crazy without my weekly mums group!